


Failure and a Small Success

by silveradept



Category: Original Work
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 04:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18684031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: After the latest failure, a Golem gets wrapped up in the affairs of the survivors when it turns out the language of the creators didn't die when they left.





	Failure and a Small Success

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamkist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamkist/gifts).



The last experiment was a failure.

Just like all the rest of them.

They wished desperately to communicate with the creators, but that was impossible. The Cataclysm had destroyed more than contact. What was left could barely call itself functional, much less civilized. They had spent the first few cycles trying to re-establish contact, but nobody had answered. Eventually, survival had won out, and they had started moving.

The next hundred cycles had been in motion, looking for some sign the creators still existed. They had found early on that the survivors of the Cataclysm had no interest in helping, and frequently believed them to be an attacker, a leftover from the thing that destroyed their carefully-built cities and fields. For many of those cycles, they were moving from one place to another, constantly avoiding more and more of the survivors as they stopped surviving and stayed rebuilding. On one of the times where they hadn't been noticed, they heard a story about a creator who built their own golem and then brought him to life.

They had been discovered and had to flee before the end of the story, but the story itself was inspiring, at least as much as they could be inspired. Another hundred cycles passed in enthusiasm of trying to create themselves a civilization to settle down in and be among friends. Several times they went back to the survivors and tried to listen in on their stories to know how the feat had been accomplished.

Yet the results were still the same. Another image fashioned in their own likeness, out of stone, out of wood, out of the useless metal always lying around. Still no spark of life in any of the experiments. They had left the others out in the storms with the hope that the pure force contained in the lightning would animate their siblings, but the lightning had only revealed their natures as shells and then shattered them.

If they were honest, trying to animate others was as much a study about trying to figure out how to stop being animate themselves. They had been in the lightning when it struck, and yet it seemed to do nothing at all to them, even as the other vessels broke apart. Searching for materials in places they knew would be toxic and deadly to survivors hadn't hurt them in the slightest. Nor had dredging the bottom of the rivers and lakes, where the sludge and the creatures that were born from it lived. Whatever magic animated them, it didn't seem particularly perturbed by the hazards that this world could produce.

Still, the power that they sought eluded them, no matter what materials and what elemental force they tried to fuse. There was little to be done but to keep listening to the stories, keep learning more about the magic, keep trying, and keep moving. The survivors were ranging farther from their settlements, as they adjusted to the new world, but reminders of what had been, and the things that were from before, still seemed to frighten them.

They had thought they were far enough away from survivors with this latest attempt that they would have left before being discovered. Smalls, however, always went farther away than anyone bigger than them believed they could go. Often because they needed to be out of sight so they could hurt other Smalls that were different in some way without anyone punishing them for it. The Small they saw now had been faster than the others, but they would catch up soon. Perhaps if their interest was so focused on their fellow, the pursuing Smalls would not see the relic from before the Cataclysm. They did not want to be seen. Being seen meant moving again, and they did not want to have to start again with the experiments somewhere else.

The targeted Small was running hard from the pursuit gang. Not too much longer, and the whole thing would pass them by without worry. Then the Small turned their head, looking for something, saw them, and spoke.

"Help me," the Small said.

They started. They hadn't heard intelligible speech since the Cataclysm. It must have been an accident of sound.

" _Help me_ ," the Small repeated.

No accident. They felt the magic stirring in them. A Purpose had been given them, and they would fulfill it. Just as soon as the Small told them how. The Purpose was the first part of the magic. The Method was the second.

" _Make them leave_ ," the Small said.

That, they could do.

They roared to get the attention of the pursuing group and began to move in their direction. No reason to hurry, certainly. The fear that had been an irritant when trying to listen to stories would be very helpful in removing the group from the Small's presence.

Some of the group had stones in their hands, but none of them were large enough (or their wielders strong or equipped enough) to be concerning. To their credit, the group only threw one stone before deciding they would not win.

As soon as the group's flight was assured, they turned back to the Small that had called them to action.

"I have not heard that speech in many cycles," they said, speaking the tongue they had believed lost forever. "Why do you speak the language of the Creators?" 

The Small looked at them with confusion.

"Do you understand me?" they tried.

The Small seemed to think for a while.

"No," the Small finally said. "Can you speak this?" they added, using the language of the survivors.

"Yes," they replied, slightly grumpily.

"Good," the Small said. " _Follow me_ ," they added, in the language of the Creators, instilling another Purpose. When the Small reached the top of the hill and turned back to check on them, the Small frowned.

" _Walk_ ," they said, exasperated.

Together, they traveled toward the Small's home. At least, they assumed it was the Small's home, despite not being anywhere near where they knew the survivors gathered. It was a single building, very large, with fields surrounding it.

" _Wait here_ ," the Small said, finally proving they could put a Purpose and a Method together. Perhaps the language had survived more than just a few fragments wielded by a Small. 

What happened next they could not hear, but what they could see involved a significant amount of arm movements, pointing at them, what could be some form of dance, and the involvement of many others that did several of the same gestures. By now they would have left, because they knew how the argument would end. They would be chased away at the first sign of ill fortune as a monster. Then they could get back to finding stories and building others. This time was only different because someone had spoken words that could command them. Soon enough, they would be commanding them away.

"You get to stay," the Small told them, bounding happily up after the arguments had finished. "Other people want to talk to you. They're just...not sure how to get you there. You're...really big."

They said nothing. There wasn't really anything to say. The Small departed.

Some time later, one of the taller survivors came to them.

"Were you given a name?" the Tall said.

"No," they replied.

"What were you created for?"

"What was needed."

" _Teach you us?_ " he asked, hesitatingly. The grammar wasn't particularly great, but the idea come across. 

" _The language?_ "

" _The magic._ "

The language was the magic. They did not fully understand that yet, but they would, with time. And, perhaps, better syntax.

The Tall took their silence as hesitation.

"We have more," the Tall said as an enticement.

"More?"

"Yes. More, like you. Beyond the far fields. Waiting to be awoken again. _Follow. Walk._ " 

They did. Well past the far fields where food was grown was a different field entirely.

The Small smiled when they arrived, spreading their arms wide, as if all the golems frozen in time were a gift from the survivors to them. The Small studied them carefully, expecting a reaction of some sort. 

"You don't look happy about this," the Small said, finally. "Can you be happy? If I told you to be happy, would you?"

They still said nothing. They were constructed to serve the Creators. Happiness was irrelevant in the face of orders. If there was a Purpose and a Method, the rest didn't matter.

Except, perhaps, that it might, now. With these survivors, who seemed eager to preserve the language of the Creators, and bring more like them back. The company of others would certainly make it easier to find and bring the Creators back.

The Small continued to peer at them. "Well, I won't tell you that you have to be happy. But I want you to tell me when you are, okay? I don't want you to be lonely any more. You're my friend, and my friends don't need to be lonely."

They pondered that thought as well. There was much to learn from these survivors. More than their stories or tales of magic. The Small kept using words for things that they knew about, but had no experience of.

"Friend," they said, pointing at the Small.

And for the first time in their existence, they understood it.


End file.
